


Who have trespassed against us

by Querulousgawks



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, References to Suicide, baby swap, post-show pre-movie AU, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after their first meeting, Mac sees Lauren Sinclair again and gives her some advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who have trespassed against us

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Lodessa for looking this over and pushing for more introspection.

Mac didn’t have to go, she knew that.

She could bail anytime.  Veronica’s last comment on the situation echoed in her ears, even as she found herself dress shopping at a store about – she pulled out a tag, did the math – 80% above her price range. Even as she snagged a pair of her mother’s blandest low heels, as she gulped a handful of her dad’s antacids, as she locked herself in the bathroom to ease out the last couple of piercings and tame her hair into something more pixie than punk, she heard it: “You don’t owe them anything, Q.”

She scowled into the mirror and repeated the answer she’d given, hoping to quell the uneasiness she always felt at donning the Cindy disguise. “We don’t choose the mission, Bond.” The real Q would never have gone himself, though. Maybe a hologram? At this point, she’d settle for a cyanide pill.

_Morbid, MacKenzie._

The notice she’d received sat heavy in her purse, and not just because it was the nicest paper she’d ever seen in her life, the kind so thick and smooth it might have a thread-count or be made out of actual papyrus.  Pulling it out again, she ran a finger softly against the black-and-gilt border. Her address on the envelope had been hand-written, but the card was printed, for which Mac had felt a rush of absurd, disproportionate gratitude. She didn’t want to think of Mrs. Sinclair writing, over and over, the time and date of Madison’s last big bash.

 Her memorial service.

 Maybe Madison’s ghost would block the door, like she had done once in life, and Mac could abandon the mission without shame. 

 It felt wrong, driving to the service in her trusty but unsubtle green Beetle, when Madison’s bulk purity test purchase had probably paid for the upgrade to power locks on its own. The church was off too, a gaudy Gothic edifice out of place in the Mission-style and stucco of Neptune. And…she had to stop enumerating the weirdnesses, or she’d never get out of the car. _Accept that everything about this will feel wrong, and find something else to think about._

Ok. Mac had always liked what she’d heard of Episcopalians, actually. All the ceremony of Catholicism with a little less rigidity and scandal: who could object to that? The MacKenzies were Christmas and Easter Protestants, attending mostly so that her mother could sing Christmas carols with the Worship Band and guilt the family into terrible holiday wear. Eyeing the dark stone and arched wooden doors, Mac thought, _I bet they have a real choir_ , and rolled her eyes at the covetous, disloyal, _stupid_ kid that apparently still occupied her brain.

 _Madison Sinclair is dead,_ she reminded herself. It didn’t sound true, that was the problem. Villains were supposed to live forever, or come back against all odds when you thought you’d triumphed, or at the very least die an outsized, tragic, poetically just death. They weren’t meant to veer into oncoming traffic on their way to something as out-of-character as the Sheriff’s department’s annual blood drive. It was enough to make you think there wasn’t a writer’s room up there, after all. _Great. Perfect thought to walk into church with._ Mac shook her head and reached out for the ornate handle, hoping the lightning would strike before she got it open and attracted the attention of anyone inside. 

Instead, the door slammed outward, and Lauren Sinclair burst through it and knocked her backwards down the steps.

“God dammit!” Mac yelled, of course she did, as her heels skidded on the top step. One hand still on the door, Lauren grabbed her with the other and they rocked precariously for a second, maybe they could – no. Lauren lost her grip and they went down in a tumble of torn hose and shame.

“Sh-crap!” Lauren yelped, and Mac suddenly felt a little better. She straightened her skirt and leaned against the railing. Lauren sat up and caught her breath, then looked back at the door. “Sorry about that.”

“No, actually," Mac gestured upwards "they’re kind of intimidating. Isn’t there a side door for the peasants, or something?”

Lauren snickered, then nodded. “Yeah, we can go around. Thank God it’s still early,” she said, but she didn’t move. Mac glanced sideways, surprised she’d even recognized her, ten years later. Her hair was Madison’s white blond, her makeup heavy and expert, and her round face had thinned out just as Mac’s had, around that age. She looked –well, wealthy. But her nails were bare, smoothed off too short like she bit them, and she had a couple of smudged notecards crumpled in her hand.

She looked up abruptly, and her eyes lightened when they finally focused on Mac. “It’s Mac, right? I remember, you were in her grade. You came to a birthday party, or something?”

“It’s crazy that you remember that. You were maybe ten? But then Madison -we weren’t exactly friends.” Mac said, hauling herself up the railing with exaggerated care.

Lauren smiled and stood with her, saying “No, I got that. She did her outraged royalty thing at you.”

They headed around the corner, where the stone façade merged with comfortingly ugly vinyl siding and a human-sized door bore a handwritten sign: _Deacon’s Office. Please Knock._ Lauren said, “We’re using this as the overflow coatroom. There’s not actually that many – well, Dad’s got a lot of business people coming.” She sighed. “I don’t really want to go back in there.”

Mac wondered if she should make her, be the adult for both of them. “Is anybody looking for you?”

“Not for twenty minutes, probably. I’m supposed to be” she looked down at the crumpled notes, hastily smoothed them out, “practicing.”

“Well…” Mac waved at the stoop. “This seems nice for sitting, too.” Lauren let out a whoosh of relief and collapsed again. Mac sat a little more carefully, tucking her legs under her skirt. Like a good influence.

“You don’t need to go find anybody?” Lauren asked. _Christ, no._ Mac shook her head a little too hard.

“I didn’t even know if I should come, really.”

There was a long pause, while Lauren stared at the cards, and Mac thought about how reluctant she’d sounded. _Nothing more awkward than revealing your dislike to the grieving family. An all-too common dislike, judging by the remark about attendance._

As if she’d heard her, Lauren said, “She could be awful to me, too. She was always just taking things. My aunt gave us matching headbands for Christmas one year, and when I came down wearing it the same day as her she ripped it right out of my hair and kept going. We weren’t even going to be in the same building, you know?”

“But Madison didn’t share.” Mac said, a little grimly. Lauren nodded.

“We pretty much just hated each other. But when I went to Stanford this year, she started coming to visit all the time. It was like she couldn’t stand to be in Neptune anymore. She’d spend the weekend, even if I was just studying, and the whole time she’d complain about how uptight I was. But once, we finally went to a party and this guy said the exact same thing, and joked about giving me something to loosen me up…she practically twisted his arm off. Tipped his drink all over him, and maybe sprained his wrist, too. I’d never heard a boy scream like that.” Mac gave a small huff of amusement, and Lauren giggled, then cut off and looked around guiltily.

“It’s just…when she was a bitch _to_ me, I hated her. But when she did it to someone else, for me, it was the best feeling in the world. Pretty hypocritical, right?”

“No.” Mac said softly. “It just sounds like…a sister thing.”

Lauren threw her a grateful look, but then gestured to the cards, swinging back into panic. “I can’t say any of this. I can’t get up there, I can’t” Lauren’s breath was catching in her throat, and she was gripping the edges of the stoop, her free hand digging into the pebbled concrete. Awkwardly, hesitantly, Mac laid her own over it. They were the same size and shape, wide palms and stubby fingers. It didn’t matter, today.

“Hey. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, ok? Say you love her. Say she’s gone too soon,” Mac said, wondering for a minute who was taking over her voice, spouting these comforting clichés. _I sound like my mother._ The look Lauren gave her was familiar, too, she’d felt it on her own face in response to this voice. Like she was speaking an alien tongue.

Other truths bubbled up, unbidden, things Mac couldn’t say and didn’t really want to be thinking: _say she was a bitch because she never felt at home and she didn’t have anyone to tell her why. Say she was nachos and Nascar and she got stuck with falafel and Fellini, or that she deserved some sweet dumb quarterback and she got the other half of the monsters Casablancas – and that can twist a person, God knows._ Mac shook her head roughly. Lauren was watching her with concern, now. _Gone too soon. Did you see that stoplight, Madison? Did you decide?  I should have told you the truth – did anybody? You deserved it._

That she could say out loud. _Get it together, Q._ She tried: “Say she deserved better. Say…she’ll be missed.”

“No one will believe that," Lauren whispered.

Mac squeezed her little sister’s hand. “I will.”  

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Madison Sinclair, This is Your Life (Backwards and in Technicolor)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110325) by [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock)




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